Massive parking garages in Mexico City consume huge amounts of city space at the expense of other uses, such as housing.

Due to the earthquake in Mexico, we have rescheduled this webinar. The new date and time is:
Thursday, October 26, 201710am (CDMX time).

About the Webinar

ITDP has been working to reform parking policies worldwide for over a decade as a way to shift cities toward sustainable transport. In July 2017, Mexico City Mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera announced changes in the construction code that would curtail the development of further off-street parking development. The new norm changes minimum parking requirements to maximums and puts Mexico City, the largest city in North America, far ahead of other cities in its commitment to prioritizing people over cars.

As cities grow, street space and real estate are becoming ever more valuable. However, outdated land use regulations still require developers to build huge amounts of parking for residential and commercial buildings, regardless of factors such as car ownership, proximity to transit, and market demand. This led to a host of negative consequences, including incentivizing driving, generated unwanted congestion, and reducing the space available for more important purposes, such as housing, transit, and public space.

ITDP Mexico has been at the forefront of advocating for rational changes to parking regulations. Through a cooperation with the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing (SEDUVI), the ITDP Mexico team developed the seminal report Less Parking, More City that compiled strong evidence for changing construction regulations. More than 40% of new developments in the city center was being allocated for off-street parking rather than other desirable uses. This stark preference in the codes for parking was counter to the aim of creating a more inclusive and equitable city, leading the Mayor to change course.

This webinar will discuss the findings of Less Parking, More City, how the land use regulations in Mexico City were changed, the process of raising awareness about off-street parking and lessons that could be useful to other cities.

About the Presenters

Bernardo Baranda | ITDPRegional Director, Latin America

Bernardo oversees ITDP programs in Latin America and has been deeply involved implementing global best practices in sustainable transport for over a decade. Bernardo has been involved in urban sustainable mobility projects in the private and non-governmental sectors. He is also a professor at Centro University in Mexico.

Bernardo holds master’s degrees in Transport Engineering from IHE-TU in Delft, The Netherlands, and in Management and Implementation of Development Projects from UMIST in Manchester, United Kingdom. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

Andrés Sañudo | Founder and Head ofEspacio Justo

Andrés Sañudo is the Founder and Head of Espacio Justo, a long-term real estate investment vehicle in Mexico that helps reduce spatial inequality while keeping attractive levels of returns for investors. He worked at the ITDP Mexico City office from 2011 to 2015, where he oversaw local efforts to reform on- and off-street parking. He was the lead coordinator of ITDPs off-street parking reform campaign “Less Parking, More City.”

Andrés holds an Msc in International Real Estate and Planning from the Bartlett School of Planning at the University College London in the United Kingdom. He earned his Bachelor’s in Applied Mathematics at ITAM in Mexico City.

On July 11, Miguel Ángel Mancera, Mayor of Mexico City announced the “limitation of parking spaces in the city construction code”. This new norm changes minimum parking requirements to maximum depending on the land use of the construction. This puts Mexico City, the largest city in North America, far ahead of American cities in this commitment improving land use, prioritizing people over cars.

As our cities grow, street space and real estate are becoming ever more valuable commodities. However, outdated regulations still require developers to build huge amounts of parking for residential and commercial buildings, regardless of factors such as car ownership, proximity to transit, and market demand. This has a whole host of negative consequences, including incentivizing driving, creating congestion, and reducing the space available for more important purposes, such as housing, transit, and public space. In the past week, there have been severalgreatpieceswritten on the importance of this change, particularly in how it related to affordable housing, a growing need in nearly every major city.

Massive parking garages in Mexico City huge amounts of city space at the expense of other uses, such as housing.

Surface parking lots in Mexico City are built not because of demand, but outdated regulations that take valuable street space away from people.

For housing, the limit is 3 parking spaces per unit no matter its size, and for offices bigger than 100 square meters, the limit is 1 parking space per every 30 square meters. It also considers mandatory space for bicycle parking and the creation of a Fund to Improve Mass Transit that the developers must pay as they approach the maximums in the Central area of Mexico City. More details for this new regulation can be found here (in Spanish).

This major policy change is a result of ITDP Mexico’s advocacy over the last 10 years, when we began working with government agencies to develop alternatives to the private car, as well as mechanisms to reduce its use. To achieve this, the rational management of parking was key. So in 2014, with the support of the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing (SEDUVI), the research study “Less parking, more city” (“Menos cajones, más ciudad”) was born providing enough evidence to show the need of a change of paradigm. This study evolved into a proposal to modify the Construction Code that ITDP delivered to Mexico City’s Government in 2015.

The full report from ITDP Mexico, in English, that resulted in this major policy reform.

Less Parking, More City gathered evidence of unsustainable trends for the city such as more square meters are being built for parking spaces than for housing. In other words, we are constructing buildings to allocate cars, while we are sending people to live in the periphery of the city, far away from their jobs, their families, and their everyday lives. This clearly goes against our aim of the inclusive and equitable cities.

Another finding of the study is that more than 40% of everything built in Mexico City is parking spaces, above any other land use including housing. In average a parking space requires between 27 m2 and 150,000 mexican pesos (about 8,500 USD) of direct constructions costs (a conservative estimate). In the 251 big real estate projects analyzed between 2009 and 2013, more than 250,000 parking spaces were constructed, with an estimated cost of 37,000 Million pesos. With that money 18 lines of Bus Rapid Transit (Metrobús in Mexico City) lines could have been built to move more than 3 million users per day.

On the other side, statistically, the demand per parking space is lower than that previously mandated by minimum parking requirements. When comparing the quantity of parking spaces in the projects, we noted that in the great majority of cases, builders try to get as close as possible to the minimum required. 67.7% of the cases studied devoted less than 10% of parking spaces above the bare minimum required.

Besides this, it is important to note that due to the size and dimensions of the land and projects, it is very difficult for developers to make exactly the bare minimum quantity required, so it usually actually turns out to be greater than this. For example, a development has a minimum of 90 parking spaces allowed, but logistically the project needs at least 3 stories for parking with a capacity for 40 parking spaces on each, so it makes economical sense for the developer to just build the 120 parking spaces.

Once this kind of evidence was gathered and the best international practices were studied, the cooperation between agencies and individuals among a diversity of areas has been necessary for the implementation of this proposal. It is important to highlight that this collaborative dynamic could function as a replicable model for the implementation of positive public policies in our cities. This collaboration was aided with a contest to rethink parking lots; an idea from the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO), with the support of strategic allies coming from private companies, civil society organizations, and a multidisciplinary jury of prestigious members: architects, urban planners, economists and public policy experts. During the award ceremony, in February of this year, the City’s Mayor announced the need to reform the current Car Parking Norm, as part of his mobility and development government strategy for a more people-centered City.

A change of policy of this importance is not the work of a single individual or institution. ITDP Mexico supported the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing, and the Ministry of Mobility in the process of technical discussion with the different important guilds that are essential in the on-the-ground implications of this, such as the Real Estate Association (ADI). At the same time, agreements were made with the National Association of Supermarkets, Convenience and Departments Stores and also with the National Chamber of the Industry of Development and Promotion of Housing with the best of intentions to reach win-win agreements. The Legislative Assembly also recognized the need to reform the policy, and the role of civil society was incredibly important. Bicitekas, WRI, editorial house Arquine and, of course, IMCO, were all key to creating this more powerful, cross-cutting and lasting public policy.

Next steps

To reduce the need to build parking spaces is a fundamental step in the right direction, and opens up the opportunity for further work and strategies. ITDP Mexico will continue to work with the city and our partners to ensure this success continues, with these next steps:

Education to the city’s residents on the advantages of this new norm, and support for behavioral changes around transport to maximize this impact.

Follow up of the direct impacts of the policy to measure variables such as enforcement, reduction in traffic, quantity of square meters dedicated to new uses, such as more and improved public spaces.

While some world leaders deny that our climate is changing, Mexico City is sinking.

Increased heat and drought, exacerbated by the emissions of millions of vehicles in the world’s most congested city, are worsening water shortages in Mexico’s capital. As drilling goes deeper and deeper for more water, Mexico City’s foundation is eroding and causing the city to actually sink—up to nine inches per year in some areas. Climate change couldn’t be more real to Mexico City residents who, even at 8,000 feet above sea level, are seeing its impacts every day: a crumbling sidewalk here, a split in the earth beneath a bus lane there.

Unfortunately, Mexico City is no anomaly. The effects of warming air, intensified storms, and rising seas are already being felt in cities across the globe, more than 90% of which are coastal. In Chennai, India last year, a heavy typhoon caused devastating flooding with an increased intensity that may be the new norm. Rising waters and floods are particularly worrisome for Jakarta, Indonesia, forty percent of which already lies below sea level.

With the U.S. backpedaling on its climate leadership role despite major international agreements already in place, cities are now taking the lead in curbing one of climate change’s biggest culprits: transport, which is responsible for 22% of all energy-related emissions. All over the world, ITDP is working closely with cities that are finding new and innovative ways to boost sustainable transport and reduce reliance on cars. Here are just a few examples:

BRT in the USA

As urban areas grow across the U.S., cities like Boston are turning to bus rapid transit (BRT) systems to efficiently provide mobility to their residents—meaning less cars on the road and fewer emissions. In Boston, ITDP is working with the government to implement a vision for what could be the country’s first Gold Standard BRT.

BostonBRT Station Design Competition flyer

Less Parking, Less Driving in Mexico City

In Mexico City, the prevalence of easy parking is encouraging driving and contributing to massive congestion and emissions. With ITDP’s support, Mayor Miguel Mancera is now pursuing a sweeping and precedent-setting overhaul of the city’s parking policy—a move that will shift more residents to public transit, reduce pollution, and deliver a crucial new source of transportation funding.

From April 19-23rd, Mexico City hosted thousands of people from over twenty countries to participate in the 6th edition of the World Bike Forum, under the slogan: handmade cities. This forum was a direct result of all the knowledge and collaboration inherited by the first host cities; Porto Alegre and Curtitiba, Brazil, and Santiago, Chile.

The concept for the World Bike Forum started on February 25th, 2011, when a car driver deliberately decided to run over a group of cyclists who were riding in a peaceful and organized manner. From that moment on, Brazil’s cyclist community gathered academics, the private sector, civil society, and the government for a series of discussions that would allow to communicate the benefits of urban cycling in Latin America.

“Cara a Cara” Event: The World Bike Forum hosted 4 social entrepreneurs from Chile and Colombia. They presented the origins of local advocacy projects and their personal takeaways while engaging with professional Mexican wrestlers.

Various panels from the World Bike Forum

ITDP Mexico participated as a strategic ally of the Forum. Salvador Medina and Marianely Patlán hosted a workshop titled “Transport-oriented Development and Active Mobility,” with support of the Inter-American Development Bank. Gonzalo Peón, Mexico’s Deputy Director and José Arevalo participated at a panel regarding bikesharing systems in Latin America. During this workshop, it was determined that ITDP’s TOD Standard has proven to be very efficient for cycling and pedestrian advocacy groups in Mexico specifically during the revision of new public transport projects in cities like Gaudalajara and Monterrey. Meanwhile, transit and planning officers in Queretaro, Cuernavaca, and Tijuana are in the process of applying concepts from the Standard. The land use regulations in those cities demand reviewing the TOD Standard, so detailed observations and amendments to the Standard were served during the workshop. ITDP Mexico is looking to strengthen their collaboration with these cities on this matter. Finally, Bernardo Baranda, Regional Director for Latin America joined a discussion titled Mobility Policies: From Legislation to Implementation, where he highlighted ITDP’s efforts to promote parking reform in Mexico City.

In addition, Areli Carreón, founder and member of Bicitekas, was elected Mexico City’s first bicycle mayor, a recognition awarded by the Dutch organization CycleSpace. During the span of her term, the bicycle mayor will seek to catalyze citizen participation, financial support of the business community, and government efforts, in order to achieve a comprehensive cycling agenda for Mexico City.

During the event, the city government announced Mexico City’s Road Safety Program (Programa Integral de Seguridad Vial), which crystallizes the Vision Zero policy that the city has been implementing in past months, and charts the route forward to achieve a significant reduction of cycling fatalities and injuries, eventually reaching zero. Furthermore, the government also announced the creation of a cyclist insurance called “Rueda Seguro” (ride safely) which seeks to give legal support and medical assistance to the cyclist community.

Late last month, nine cities across Mexico held a challenge. In a competition to highlight the importance of non-motorized transit, several cycling groups and civil society organizations held the Modal Challenge, an event comparing travel times between several transport modes as they crossed the city. In each city, participants raced using walking, cycling, e-biking, public transit, motorcycles, and personal vehicles. The event was part of a larger campaign, led by cycling advocates BICIRED, emphasizing the need for more public resources devoted to building sustainable and equitable cities.

In Mexico City, Modal Challenge participants tested a 10km route, equivalent to the average distance traveled in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area. Starting at 8:00 in the morning, fifteen volunteers navigated through rush hour traffic to the Legislative Assembly building, where organizers recorded their arrival times. The first three to finish all arrived by bike. In fact, in five out of nine cities, bicycles emerged as the winners. The results underscore the efficiency of cycling, and the importance of providing enough safe, integrated infrastructure to allow more residents to choose to bike.

The Modal Challenge is part of a campaign run by cycling advocates BICIRED aimed at encouraging the Ministries of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP) and Agriculture, Land, and Urban Development (SEDATU) to allocate more resources to non motorized infrastructure. This year, the Ministry of Finance, for the first time, included the a new program (PMUS) dedicated to funding the design and implementation of sustainable mobility projects around the country. Building off this success, the Modal Challenge and larger campaign are encouraging the federal government to follow through on this promise and create a robust plan to increase funding and implementation of infrastructure for non-motorized transport.

The Modal Challenge generated awareness among the public, too, calling media attention to the efficiency of biking and the role is can play in the city. Competition participants could use any route to reach the destination, but were required to comply traffic regulations at all times. The event joins a range of campaigns using tactical urbanism and social media to raise the profile of low-carbon transport in Mexico City and secure strong political support for reshaping the city to be safe and attractive for all.

Transforming a vibrant and diverse metropolis like Mexico City is no easy task. But consistent progress, led by elected officials and citizen groups alike, is leading to impressive results. On International Pedestrian Day, Mayor Miguel Mancera (above, centered) announced a new Vision Zero policy which will improve safety and comfort for pedestrians across the city. The policy reflects years of advocacy by ITDP Mexico and civil society organizations, and aligns the city with the global road safety movement.

The first of its kind in Mexico City, the new regulation establishes a range of road safety measures that will protect human life and improve comfort for those on foot. By prioritizing pedestrian lives over vehicles, the measures will allow secure, efficient, and comfortable movement around the city.

The new policy is built on three pillars: law enforcement, road design, and establishing a culture of mobility. Measures will include decreasing speeds for motorist on major roads, improving intersection design, and traffic calming measures. Interventions at dangerous intersections are already being planned, with additional policies to come. In Mexico City, approximately 1,000 people are killed each year due to traffic crashes. Of these, about half are pedestrians. The new policy sets the initial goal of reducing this by 35%.

The strength of the law is the result of a union between civil society and government officials. ITDP Mexico has worked to increase awareness of Vision Zero principles among local politicians and decision makers, thereby building support for the policy. In addition, the regulations include input from organizations including ITDP Mexico, Bicitekas A.C, Civita Consultores, CTS Embarq Mexico, CONAPRA, Mexico Previene A.C, and Greenpeace Mexico. National and international experts, such as Jon Orcutt and Michael King, were consulted to establish strong and accurate road safety criteria. The result is one of the most advanced transit regulations in Latin America.

Vision Zero is a comprehensive strategy built on the principle that no loss of human life from traffic collisions is acceptable. Started in Stockholm, the concept takes the stand that collisions are not ‘accidents’, but preventable incidents that can be avoided by systemic action. The policy has been adopted in cities around the world as a way to improve safety and comfort for pedestrians. Using traffic control, intersection redesigns, and other tools, the policy seeks to reduce the number of crashes between motorists and pedestrians, and prevent death or serious injuries.

The new law is a major step forward for Mexico City, and will serve as a model for other cities across Mexico. The policy sets a precedent that puts people first, and marks a new beginning for urban mobility in Mexico City.

With the support of the neighborhood, ITDP Mexico and Mexico Previene (“Prevention Mexico”) recently took to the streets to intervene at a dangerous intersection in central Mexico City. Using tactical urbanism, a tool for reconsidering the distribution of public space, the intervention transformed the intersection into a safe, multimodal crossing. The project aimed to demonstrate the possibilities for improving street infrastructure for pedestrians, and to create spaces where those on foot can enjoy the safety and comfort that is everyone’s right.

A busy intersection in the Doctores neighborhood of Mexico City, the junction presented many challenges to creating a safe pedestrian crossing: traffic light phases are short, cars are always moving and often make prohibited turns, wide distances between sidewalks leave pedestrians exposed for long periods, signalization is confusing or nonexistent, and cars are parked directly where pedestrians would want to walk, further impeding the visibility of pedestrians about to cross. As part of the United Nations #SaveKidsLives campaign, ITDP Mexico and local traffic safety organizations set out to show what intersections look like when they are designed to make pedestrian safety a priority.

See a video of the intervention (with English subtitles)

Using large traffic cones to block off space, the team created a design that featured shorter crossings, pedestrian islands, and extended sidewalks. The new layout created a more even distribution of space, and removed the standard assumptions about the supremacy of cars in Mexico streets. Though the intervention itself is temporary, the design will be submitted to the authorities to consider implementing permanent changes to the intersection.

The intervention serves as a call to the authorities to redo their criteria for the design and implementation of street infrastructure with these new lessons in mind. Using redesigned intersections like this one as a reference, the city can create minimum design standards for streets and intersections.

The intervention is the latest in a series of tactical urbanism projects by ITDP Mexico as part of the #CAMINA (#Walk, in English) campaign. The initiative promotes the improvement of pedestrian conditions so that those on foot can walk safely, efficiently, and comfortably.

This article originally appeared on Earthshare, and is reposted here with permission. Earthshare works to engage individuals in building a healthy and sustainable environment by implementing workplace giving campaigns on behalf of environmental and conservation nonprofits. Learn more about donating to ITDP through Earthshare.

When we think of great cities for sustainable transport, we think of picturesque cities in Northern Europe, such as Copenhagen, or wealthy, dense enclaves such as Hong Kong or Singapore. There have, however, been exciting transformations in cities all over the world, particularly in the global south. Here are five cities that have improved quality of life for millions by investing in sustainable, equitable transport.

A Janmarg BRT station in Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad, India

Ahmedabad is a city of five million in the western state of Gujarat. In 2009, the city set the benchmark for high-quality transit in India with the Janmarg bus rapid transit system. Janmarg, which means “the people’s way” in Gujarati and moves more than 130,000 people per day, was a major improvement for a city that previously had few options for the 90 percent of residents that do not own cars. Today, Ahmedabad is a regional leader in transport and urban planning, with progressive legislation on parking and Transit-oriented Development, dense, mixed-use development, parking reform, and improvements for walking, cycling, and even better public transit.

One of the newly-pedestrianized blocks in the downtown “microcentro”

Buenos Aires, Argentina

In 2013, Buenos Aires transformed their iconic 9 de Julio avenue, one of the widest avenues in the world with 20 lanes of car traffic, into an efficient, modern public transit corridor. The project is part of a citywide mobility plan initiated in 2009, which includes the pedestrianization of more than 100 blocks of the city center, an extension of the ecobici bike share program, a 300 km cycling network, and intersection treatments to improve safety for pedestrians.

The Dongaochong Greenway converted an area under an overpass into a vibrant public space

Guangzhou, China

This megacity on the Pearl River Delta is home to the highest-performing BRT system in the world, carrying more than 850,000 passengers per day through 26 stations with speeds equal to metro. The achievements of Guangzhou, however, go well beyond the bus. They have one of the largest bike share systems in the world, and have transformed underused areas, such as the often-derelict space under overpasses, into beautiful public spaces. ITDP China, based in Guangzhou, hosts upwards of 50 government, NGO, and academic site visits every year, and has inspired replication projects in cities across China and Southeast Asia.

In addition to improving commutes, the project has helped to massively improve the streetscape and quality of life in the downtown area – making many of these streets exclusively for cyclists, pedestrians, and BRT.

The Tehran BRT moves 2 million people a day

Tehran, Iran

Iran is the most urbanized country in the Middle East, and Tehran is one of the largest metropolises in Asia. A decade ago, Tehranis had few options for getting around their city other than driving on increasingly congested roads. Over the last decade, Tehran has built more than 200 km of metro rail, transporting 2 million passengers per day. The city also created a high quality BRT network of 100 km that transports another 2 million daily. Beyond that, Tehran has implemented a congestion pricing program to reduce traffic in the city, and developed a bike share system in one of their administrative districts.

Armed with illuminated traffic cones and clear signage, activists in Mexico City are changing the shape of their city’s streets. Mexico City, like many cities around the world, has lost its walkable scale. Long distances and fast traffic have made walking less attractive, and streetscapes have been built to move cars, not people. To fix this, city officials and activists alike are making efforts to reshape the way roads throughout the city prioritize people walking.

Change has started at the city level, with Mexico City’s passage in July 2014 of a new Mobility Law, which committed to the right of every person and the community to have an adequate and accessible comprehensive system of quality mobility. The Law recognizes the central role of pedestrians in creating vibrant public spaces. From this movement, the city has seen new interventions and street redesigns in areas with a strong pedestrian presence, including several majoravenues.

Activists added traffic cones to the street, allowing dedicated space for people on bikes.

As a next step, ITDP Mexico is launching a new campaign to improve pedestrian environments and allow more people to walk safely, efficiently, and comfortably. The project, #CAMINA, (#Walk, in English), uses tactical urbanism to create temporary street interventions that prove the ease and benefits of prioritizing walking. Working with local officials and local activists, the campaign will show Mexico City what it’s like to live in a city where the pedestrian is king.

For #CAMINA’s first act, the group staged an intervention using illuminated traffic cones to redistribute public space on streets more equitably. By creating quick, temporary change on a busy downtown street, the campaign sent the message that creating streets with space for people walking is easy, and it’s right.

The intervention blocked off more space for people on foot at intersections, created cycle lanes, and added clear signage, with messages including “walking safely and comfortably is your right”. The intervention allowed residents to see how the behavior of those walking, cycling and driving changed when the infrastructure truly favored people walking and biking. The project was launched during Visual Arts Week in Mexico City.

These interventions project a vision of the city. The changes to the street, though temporary, illustrate the importance of walking, and allow others to see how public space can be used when the design was shaped at a human scale. Join the conversation on Twitter using #Camina, and see more photos from the intervention below and on Flickr.

From ever-lighter materials to inflatable helmets and foldable bikes, the history of the bicycle has been one of innovation and creativity. Biking has for years inspired a sense of freedom and empowerment for riders around the world, but over time, designs and materials have changed dramatically. In a new exhibition tracing important moments in the history of the bicycle, the Franz Mayer Museum in Mexico City teamed up with ITDP Mexico to highlight the growth and diversity of bicycles.

The exhibition is a celebration of cycling’s resurgence, in Mexico and around the world. As cities worldwide continue to add bike lanes, cycle-shares, and other pro-bike measures, the exhibition recognizes the bicycle’s immense contributions to urban mobility and to the sustainability of the planet.

A wire outline compares the space taken up by a car compared to the ubiquitous ecoBici bikes.

On opening night of the exhibit, Tanya Müller Garcia, Mexico City’s Minister of the Environment, reaffirmed the importance of sustainable mobility. “This exhibition reiterates the commitment of the Government of the City of Mexico to promote cycling as a means of sustainable transport and culture.”

“A Return to The Bike is an event that, by its nature, encourages the public to take a renewed look at the role of the bicycle in urban mobility,” said ITDP Latin America Director, Bernardo Baranda. ” It offers a paradigm that celebrates their invention and promotes their use at a large scale”.

The exhibition features 52 bicycle designs, with a focus on Mexican manufactures. From classic models, like the 1960 Saeta racing bike, to modern innovations, such as bamboo bikes, the display aims to showcase the close relationship between developments in bicycle design and social and cultural progress.

A Return to the Bike will be open from January 28 to April 19, 2015. For more information on the exhibition, as well as several parallel events, including round table discussions and concerts, see the ITDP Mexico site and the museum’s website.